Category: English I

For most of us, family is one of the most important things in our lives. Few of us want to think about how we would react if forcibly separated from our families. Unfortunately for many throughout history, this subconscious fear suddenly became a harsh reality. A quintessential example can be found in American slavery. One of the worst aspects of the slave system was that slave families could be separated at any time never to see one another again. Continue reading “Responses to Separation”

Note-Taking Tips 101

What must you do to take better notes about what is going on around you? You must be sure to write your notes down coherently. In the heat of the moment it would be best to remind yourself of the occasions using simple words like: David Joke Three Legged Man. This is so you can read your notes later and describe the event with more detail. Using other things around you to describe what you feel at the time would also help you in your note-taking. Continue reading “Surrounded by Notes”

Important Events

Fredrick Douglass expressed that the most important event in his early life was the experience of learning to read. Douglass says in his autobiography that learning to read was a major turning point in his life. Douglass attributes very positively that this was the best event that ever happened to him. Although he may have embellished the importance of education. There is no doubt that becoming literate played a vital role in Douglass’s life and eventually his circumvention from slavery.

The Story

The story behind all this started when Douglass was about seven or eight years old. He was transferred from a plantation in Talbot County to Baltimore. When he was at the new home Douglass, a black slave, saw something unique in his new mistress, a smile directed to him. The woman was empathetic to the young slave and began to teach him how to read. However, eventually the husband of the mistress found out and forbade her to teach him. For it was against the law to teach a slave to read. This was because a literate slave would be better able to understand their bondage. Encouraging them to make a stand for their own freedom. And this is why Douglass for the rest of his life never gave up on his search to find freedom.

My Own Anticipation

The story of this central event in Douglass’s life caused me to wonder, “Has any event in my life had the same impact as learning to read did in Douglass’s?” My answer would be the obvious fact to me of my confession of my depravity, and my faith and hope in the one true Savior. Aside from this, no event has really changed my life. However, I do know that the event of my marriage, or of my fatherhood, will make a huge impact on my my life. But, because these events have not taken place, I only pray and hope that these things do come to pass.

Literatures Importance

Literature can make a profound impact on the lives of any one person. It of course is not limited to just this fact, but that of many others. Literature has the power to change the world, for good or bad. The old saying is very applicable here, “The pen is mightier then the sword.” This literally means that those who possess the power of writing, have the potential to saturate those who come in contact with their works. Likewise, the person who has the power to comprehend literature, has the ability to lead others in the teachings. Most people might take the advantage of reading for granted. But the harsh truth is, that if most people could not read, then those who could would be in total control. So lets not take this advantage for our own personal interests. And instead, use it to make this world a better place.

Philosophy

In his book Walden, Henry David Thoreau didn’t convey any part of his philosophy. Doing this can leave readers uncertain as to how Thoreau lived and thought. Henry contradicted himself to the point that his audience was left confused about what he actually believed. A poorly presented philosophy can leave readers in a state of resentment toward the author. The reason for this is the fact that now the reader trusts the writer less, and thus handles the narrative with uncertainty. Continue reading “The Importance of Philosophy”

Henry Thoreau Writes

One defect about Henry David Thoreau’s famous book Walden, is that Henry Thoreau completely omits any mention of his early life, education, or family. I think that if an individual is willing to spend time to read an autobiography, they should want to know more about the author’s childhood and family, this Thoreau did not offer. Failure to provide such information causes an autobiography to lose a great deal of value. The reader misses the most influential and psychological important time of every authors life…his childhood and early years.Continue reading “Criticizing a Man of History”

Let me start off by saying that whilst I am talking about the American slavery before the Civil War, and how it was morally evil. I know for a fact that there is however, a just form of slavery that God permits. In God’s eyes, if you owed a person money, you were their “slave” until you could pay off your debt. But, if a “master” physical harmed his slave, his slave was free to leave. Now in some cases men would chose to stay a slave to the person the owed after they had paid off the debt. The reason for this is because being a slave offered protection to a person, and lots of people want protection, wether it be financial or physical.

John Thompson could not persuade me more of the evil of the the American Slave System. Man’s selfish desire to be “god” put him a spot where he will grab power whenever he can. In the early 1800, the best way to have power was to have money. Now in those days, men exercised their “power” by buying slaves against their will, to do their work for them. You get this system when men have a faulty view of God, man, sin, and well……everything.

Thompson paints a very clear image of how cruel slavery in the South was. Slaves being whipped often and at times for no reason at all. In a biblical system, any slave who was mistreated was free to leave, thus resulting in the loss of a slave to a master. Many plantation owners had daily whippings just to keep the slaves in a state of humble submission. Slaves who were constantly beaten eventually committed suicide, because they would rather die then endure merciless treatment.

Justice inside most of the plantations was the word of the slave over the word of the Overseer. Thus the slave was always punished, and sometimes killed in their beatings. Some of these slaves may have been innocent of whatever they were accused of, but it didn’t matter because they couldn’t prove it. What is interesting to me is the fact that slaves were huge assets, and to disposing of them so lightly was a great waste of money.

Thompson gives so many horrifying examples of the mistreatment of slaves. Now this does not mean that all masters were cruel, or that all slaves hated their masters. There were many kind masters who didn’t really have slaves at all, their slaves worked for them because of the protection it offered. They loved their masters, and were more-or-less, their employees. Thompson believed that God would pour his wrath on this “Guilty Nation”. I think that God did judge the evil men of that time, just like he is judging the men of today. But I don’t think it will happen the way that Thompson wants it to happen. Which he conveys be they way he spoke against it.

“What would I do in my autobiography that is different from what Darwin did?”

First let me just start out by saying that Charles Darwin is undoubtedly one of the most influential men in history. He is well known for his books The Descent of Man and Origin of Species, both having a great effect on the modern way of thinking. When Darwin wrote his autobiography he failed to thoroughly mention his experiences that lead him to write his influential books. He briefly mentioned his experiences on the Beagle, a voyage that ultimately changed not only his life, but many others as well. He spent a great deal of time in his autobiography writing about the experiences he had when writing some of his other inconsequential books. Darwin couldn’t determine what was relevant in his own life, thus he spent considerable time writing about topics that the reader might find vague and boring. Darwin was a part of some major changes, but the influence he had that caused those changes were repudiated in his narrative. In short, Darwin failed to write a decent autobiography.

If I happened to ignite a huge chaotic whirlwind of conflict, like Darwin most certainly did, I would go through great efforts to explain my experiences in detail. I would explain how my ideas changed my life and how they affected others. I wouldn’t skip over important events just to then proceed to talk about a subject with no value and holds no interest to readers. When writing an autobiography it is of the utmost importance that you keep your reader in mind. This will help keep you on track so you don’t ever stray from what is actually relevant. Darwin has a great writing style, he is superb at holding his ideas together, he just failed to write about the good “ideas.” I think the only reason I read his book was because he’s Charles Darwin and I wanted to know how he achieved all his success, but he never talked about it, so I only kept reading hoping he will eventually cover the topic, but he never does. When I write my autobiography I will focus on significant information, and I would attempt to construct stories interesting and perhaps useful to my readers. Darwin never puts anything personal in his narrative, he does briefly mention that he got married and had children, but then he moves on after a few remarks. Obviously having a family would have an effect on ones life, but you never heard what Darwin experienced with his family. Darwin chose poorly what topics he was going to cover in his narrative. He had no idea what was important in the world or his life for that matter. If I want to successfully write a satisfactory autobiography, I will copy Darwin’s writing style, which is surprisingly good, but I will do the exact opposite of what he did to determine subject matter.

English L100 Essay
“Should I include reconstructed speeches in my autobiography?”

I have covered this question briefly before in a couple other posts. Today I will give a more detailed answer. There are two aspects to this question, if you are going to repeat a conversation that you had with another person would it be better to summarize it or repeat the whole conversation “word for word?”

Previously I have said that it would be a terrible idea to reconstruct a conversation because of the possibility of defrauding someones name if you incorrectly stated something that they said, when they really didn’t say anything of the sort. This could have positive effects on the person, but most likely it would have a negative outcome. This could happen one of two ways, first, if you attempted to summarize the conversation, you could tell it wrong. Second, if you attempted to rewrite the conversation word for word, not to mention the difficulty you would have remembering what words were exchanged, but if you happened to rephrase it incorrectly you could hurt that persons good name if others read what you had written.

So basically, it’s a terrible idea to attempt to reconstruct speeches in your autobiography. If you really want to reconstruct a conversation, it would be much better to write a short summary of the conversation, this would benefit you, this would benefit the reader, and this would benefit the other person that you are quoting.

Readers might find whole conversations boring and tedious. So when incorporating conversations in your autobiography keep it brief and get your point across. If you don’t, it adds very little to your narrative and may cause a reader to put your book back on the shelf. A long conversation you had fifteen years ago might be interesting to you, but holds little value to a reader. So unless the conversation tells something about you, it holds close to no weight. So in a nutshell, be carful when reconstruction conversations or speeches in you narrative. It would be unkindly to hurt someone through your unintentional mistake. To keep your story interesting, you want to write it with the intention of keeping your reader interested, this requires skill and should be a goal for anyone wishing to write there story in the future.

When writing an autobiography, you must keep in mind who your targeted audience is, to do that you need to know who your audience is. Who would my targeted audience be? Who you want to read your autobiography greatly affects what events you include and exclude. Why would anyone read my autobiography? Most people wouldn’t care if I wrote an autobiography. I want people to read my autobiography, and to do that I need to make it interesting. Many different people like and enjoy many different things, thats why it is important to know who your audience is…so you know what they like and enjoy. I believe and hope that when I write my autobiography it will tell an interesting, insightful, and enjoyable story that people can learn from. I would want people to know why I wrote my story.

Any writing project would probably increase my writing skills, but writing an autobiography and managing to keep it interesting would undoubtedly generate massive improvement in my writing ability. Anyone can tell their life story, but it takes great skill to formulate an interesting story. If I could achieve this, I would be well on my way to becoming an acceptable writer.

Also, if you become an important person, people will appreciate your autobiography. For no matter how good a biography can be it will never compare with an autobiography, for who can write about you better than yourself?

Writing an autobiography takes work and discipline to write. The easiest way to do it is to start early. Begin writing down certain events that have happened in your life soon after they happen. That basically means you will take notes of your life. You can just write a short note on how your day went and the important events that came about during it. That way, when you do start officially writing your autobiography, you will be able to recall that day due to the note that you wrote. An autobiography is well worth it.